I'm not ugly but I'm not pretty either. Everything is in-between. I have eyes that aren't green or brown, but a muddle. I'm not thin but I'm not fat either. the only thing you could definitely say about me is that: I'm short

And now I know why they invented words for love, why they had to: It's the only thing that can come close to describing what I feel in that moment, the baffling mixture of pain and pleasure and fear and joy, all running sharply through me at once.

And then, just at that moment, when I'm no longer sure if I'm dreaming or awake or walking some valley in between where everything you wish for comes true, I feel the flutter of his lips on mine.

That's what time does: We stand stubbornly like rocks while it flows all around us, believing that we are immutable - and all the time we're being carved, and shaped, and whittled away.

That is the rule of the Wilds: You must be bigger and stronger and tougher. You must hurt or be hurt.

There's a place for everything and everyone, you know. That is the mistake they make above. They think that only certain people have a place. Only certain kinds of people belong. The rest is waste. But even waste must have a place. Otherwise it will clog and clot, and rot and fester.

But the guilt goes even deeper than that. It, too, is dust: Layers and layers of it have accumulated. Because if it weren’t for me, Lena and Alex would never have been caught at all. I told on them. I was jealous. God forgive me, for I have sinned.